Welcome to Texas justice: You might beat the rap, but you won't beat the ride.

Saturday, June 04, 2011

Adios por ahora: Grits off for the week

Grits is taking a week off for a much-needed post-session vacation. Having been too lame to line up any guest bloggers, you'll have to get along without any new material on this blog until my return. Use this as an open thread to discuss whatever you want, and meanwhile I'll be enjoying the cooler weather and more cosmopolitan setting in Mexico City. As for the special legislative session, at least for the next week my attitude can be summed up with this photo:

Dom3330 I think that you’re on to something: Perry and his cohorts want to educate the lower classes and most work a day democrats in prison since that’s where he thinks they will wind up any way. Shift all of the money to enclose say The Valley as one large prison ( That takes care of the border issue as TDC would guard the border as well) and thrown in a few schools; then the rest of us can use vouchers at our local churches to pay for parochial schools. Darn, I think I finally got it...It’s called the "Modified Escape from New York Educational Prison Border Security funding plan"...

Here is a talking point, I think, for the protesters. According to an earlier Grits post, almost all of the funding cuts for TDCJ were from CJAD (probation),prison programs, and prison healthcare. The prison operations budget remained almost intact. An insulting figure of only $5 million, out of more than $4 Billion. That's a little more than one Tenth of One percent. The $4 Billion cut from education is also lowballing that figure. They are kicking another $2 Billion or so into the next biennium. All this while they leave $6 Billion in the RDF, which should grow to $10 Billion by the end of the biennium. They are closing one prison, and giving that money to private prison companies, who have a history of ineptitude, corruption, lawsuits, etc. etc. (See all the earlier posts on Grits about this.) Yeah, I guess their priorities are a little confused, to say the least. They are still operating on the premise that half the population of Texas wants the other half locked up. Which may be true, until you give them choice of sacrificing education to pay for it. They may find out when their next election cycle comes up.

Me, I am so overloaded with bad news from our Lege to the Congress that I am also shutting down. There is only so much stupidity a person can watch and still remain non-homicidal. lol (Joking Homeland Security and FBI...just a joke!!)

Mexico is suffering "from severe environmental devastation," which may be the "worst witnessed in the world," according to Mexico's National Assembly of Environmentally Affected Groups (Asamblea Nacional de Afectados Ambientale or ANAA). The Americas Program published a translated copy of the ANAA's warning of environmental disaster on February 1, 2010.

According to the press release, the ANAA formed on August 31, 2008, when 35 communities from around Mexico met to discuss their struggles and share strategies for combating environmental degradation.

Although the groups came from a diverse cross-section of Mexico, where they faced differing issues and challenges, they felt that they all ultimately strained against common foes. The ANAA statement argued that it had formed "due to the impunity with which large private and state-owned corporations act, destroying our conditions of life or dispossessing us of them; due to the complicity of our federal, state, and municipal authorities with the companies that destroy our ecosystems and our lives, because our culture is destroyed when our traditional ways of life are deformed; due to the destruction of our processes of agricultural production; due to the silence on the subject by the majority of the media and most researchers, universities, and research institutions; but also because they not only silence this devastation, they guarantee it and fan its flames."

While there are environmental problems throughout Mexico, the northern border area faces some of the worst pollution. The rapid industrial and population growth along the Mexo-American border due in large part to the maquiladora focused development strategy has created numerous issues over the last two decades.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported in 2008 that industrial growth in this region has led to significant increases in solid waste production, and water and air pollution, problems exacerbated by the influx of people to work in these new jobs and poor urban planning. The health and environmental impact of this pollution is not limited to Mexico, according to the Journal of Southern Rural Sociology, which noted in 2009 "that international boundaries do not stem environmental, health, and economic issues-these are permeable, affecting people on both sides of the region."

Environmental organizations on both sides of the border thus see danger in the continuing focus on irresponsible growth in the Mexican economy. The dangers to human health and the natural environment from industrial activity, mining, deforestation and urbanization provide a serious challenge for Mexico. The ANAA, along with its allies the Environmental Observatory of the Union of Concerned Scientists (Union de Científicos Comprometidos or UCCS), will continue "the tedious task of collecting, systematizing, piecing together the puzzles, and the critical analysis of abundant first-hand data" in their efforts to stem the tide Mexico's environmental degradation and destruction.

Audrey, fwiw it was 25 degrees cooler in Mexico City when I landed than when I took off from Austin.

Also, no worries on the cartel front, folks, much less "partying." El Popo the volcano is probably a bigger concern, and it hasn't been much of one. I'm here with my 4.5 year old granddaughter (on the right in the photo) making the rounds at children's sites - spent today at the amazing zoo in Chapultepec Park, which is so enormous we plan to spend at least one more day there. This is a great town for kids, if that's what you're looking for, just like you can find trouble here if you're looking for that. Now that I think of it, you could say the same for Houston, but the weather's better here. :)

Have fun in Mexico City. If you happen to see the President of Mexico, can you ask him is he has a cabinet position for Rick Perry? We'll give him to them for free and I'll even pay for the relocation.

Hey Grits, have fun bro. you deserve it. But of all places to take a family vacation, you've either got in on a too good to pass up deal or still have a wild hair or two?

If it's not too late please heed these words of wisdom. No matter how many times they tell you that they filter the water, don't believe it, it's a trick. While you are at it, avoid the temptation to drink beer made in Mexico (yes they piss in the vatts while yelling Remember the Alamo!) Don't believe it, try buying a native a beer and they'll go for a Bud every time. C-Ya.

Thomas, you don't have to have a wild hair to visit Mexico City, particularly for visits to the zoo or the (amazing) children's museum. And it's always a good deal to come here: It's a huge, cosmopolitan city of 23 million people two hours flight from Texas, with dirt cheap prices and as much to offer tourists as New York or Chicago. I've been to the Mexican interior perhaps nine or ten times in the last 20 years, so I'm pretty well aware of the actual dangers and also those that are over-hyped stereotypes in the minds of gringos. I don't drink beer, but one sees plenty of Mexicans drinking Mexican cerveza, for example, most of which aren't actually exported. To the extent there's nationalist resentment toward Americans, it stems far more from Woodrow Wilson's invasion of Veracruz than the Alamo. But these days, so many Mexicans have either lived in the US or have family there, the dynamic is a lot different than it used to be even 20 years ago.

As for drinking the water, I get it bottled, not out of the tap, and at the B&B I'm at as I write this I'm staring at a water filter that's of the same type you'd buy at REI. But if you let those concerns hinder you too much, you miss some of the best foods available - e.g., I drink horchata or other agua frescas all the time here and you'll never have a finer $3 meal than comida corrida in a bustling mercado, where you can observe the cleanliness and sanitary practices of the cooks firsthand. The last time I had a bout of Montezuma's Revenge was 1994 in Chiapas. (I was writing a cover story for the Austin Chronicle on the Zapatista uprising and got sick after a meal from a street vendor in a village out in the hinterlands.)

Besides, the culture here adores kids. On the way out of a restaurant last night four waitresses and the cashier insisted on much-welcomed hugs from the young'un, who's been treated like a princess everywhere we go, from the fanciest restaurant to the most meager taco stand.

Now, would I take my granddaughter to Juarez or Acuna right now, or even a Pacific port like Acapulco? Not a chance. But Mexico City? No problemo.

And in semi-related news, Mexican gangsters fired shots across the Rio Grande today at Texas Rangers and other law enforcement officers in Hidalgo County who had seized a boat loaded with drugs. And I thought Obama said the border was safe?

@7:55 - The Texas side of the border IS safer than any other part of Texas. Any datapoint you can point to backs it up. If you judge solely by anecdote, of course, it's always possible to over-hype fear.

The REAL "spillover" of violence isn't from Mexicans shooting up Texas but Texas gang members crossing the border into Mexico to serve as soldiers and hitmen for the cartels. Of course there is the problem of drug crimes knowingly tolerated for years on end by US law enforcement on the US side, but I'm not sure that was your reference.

And David W, I don't know what media coverup you're talking about. I just searched the incident on Google News and it said 524 media outlets had covered the story. In your world, that's a coverup? Bizarre.

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